I am somewhat struggling with a project that I have set myself to do:
I am attempting to create a Web application for ServiceDesk work schedule. The app would show a schedule on a principle of week/month/year with the option to change view and enable users to see a spreadsheet like schedule for their daily assignments. A similar view as such, just maybe less detailed.
I am trying to build it in Oracle Apex. Now I have narrowed it down to 2 possibilities in terms of layout: either I use calendar, in which the layout would be slightly different and would basically have to show each task with details of who and what, or I go for Gantt chart and make it so that the left side shows names of the employees and the upper side shows time in days/months/years.
What I am struggling with is whether one or the other is the right way to go. I am trying not to make it too complicated for the administrator to make changes (at the moment, the work schedule is in excel spreadsheet, updated every month) as that would be counterproductive and could make it worse to use than excel. Also, the reason why I chose Apex is the fast that the company I work for actually uses apex in a lot of the projects and would be a bit easier to integrate with the rest of the systems already in play.
Any tips or guidelines to follow would be greatly appreciated!
Jervis,
Based on your comment:
Apex Calendar region is not appropriate here, as the ability to customize it is very limited. You couldn't even get it to show the 30 days shown in your mock-up.
I don't think Apex Charts would allow the formatting you're looking for either.
You need a grid region of some sort where you can arrange and style it. You can try an Apex Interactive Grid region. That doesn't include drag-n-drop functionality out of the box and I don't know of a free plug-in adds that functionality. That will probably do the basics of what you want
If you can pay for a commercial Apex framework, I'd recommend the FOEX Enterprise framework, which adds a ton of functionality and interactivity, including editable grids that you can drag-n-drop. It's not cheap (per-developer licensing) and there's a learning curve because it's a different way of doing Apex, but it's a very solid product and you can buy consulting time from them.
(I'm a FOEX customer, not an employee or a shill)
Related
I think this question may be somewhat similar to this one : REDCap automatically populate fields from earlier records
That said, in that question they were populating the dropdown with data from elsewhere in REDCap, my question pertains to outside of REDCap.
What exactly I'm trying to do:
At our institution we store a bunch of information in a clinical trial management software called "OnCore". That's not SUPER important for this question, besides the fact that we connect to it for various reasons through a couple different possible channels (sql, api, Snowflake, etc..).
At the same time, we're building a REDCap project where staff can keep track of deviations that happen in trials and what was done about it. The problem is, staff currently have to manually type into REDCap the protocol they are working on.
Let's say in OnCore a protocol is called LS-P-Joe. Well, in REDCap, someone might type "LS-p-jOe" or "Joe" or "LSPJOE" etc.. etc.. and it'll cause a problem when I go to merge the data later.
I'd love to have a dropdown where staff can only select one spelling of the word, unfortunately there are dozens if not a few hundred studies to choose from (I don't want to build them all into the REDCap project manually).
Which brings me to: is there a way to have a dropdown in REDCap that dynamically connects to an outside data source? Let's say through SQL query?
Create a new REDCap project that contains only the legal protocol. No patient data points are needed.
Use a simplified version of #Jangari's solution (that you referenced above). But your scenario doesn't require the UNION clause. I think you'll need a REDCap admin to implement the Dynamic SQL Field.
Automate some script to periodically update the list of legal protocol names. Presumably you query OnCore (maybe with an Oracle driver) and update REDCap (see this list of packages that use REDCap's API).
I suggest involving your site's REDCap admin as soon as possible. They can also ask questions in the API space on the REDCap Community Site.
I'm interested in displaying 1-5 model instances using forms on a page using a grid similar to something one would find in a desktop database application. I understand I would need to use multiple forms or formsets but an additional requirement is that I'd prefer it to be in more of a grid format with each model's fields being display in columns with common field labels on the y-axis.
I should have the ability to edit multiple columns (so in effect, model instances) at the same time and then commit either the single column (model instance) or commit all. I'd also like to be able to highlight the changed cells that have changed to give visual feedback to the user that there are pending changes.
Sorry for the rather long list of requirements and I'm aware this probably requires a few different technologies/techniques to achieve. I'm throwing this out there because I'm asking this kind community for guidance on what components/technologies I should look at. If luck would have it, there would be some jQuery component that can handle this for me almost out of the box. If not, some guidance on achieving the editing of multiple model instances would be of help.
I will also need to build in versioning in case the data displayed on the view page is stale and to prevent overwriting a newer commit. I'd probably achieve the latter using a versioning field in the table that will perform the check and handle it accordingly.
Also, Flask and Django are both options for the engine and WTForms look to be promising at least at first look.
Thanks
There is no such ready to use solution in Django. Just create your custom form that handles as many instances as you want and do anything that you want, or extend formset.
In VB.NET (Not ASP.NET) what can I use for a daily calendar. I have done extensive DuckDuckGo and Google search and I have came up with no viable options.
The purpose of the calendar is to create a appointment system with multiple dentists therefore appointments also can run in parallel. However having it in parallel isn't required as I may have the end-use select what dentist the appointment is for (creating a appointment, therefore got to select a date/time).
The project is only a university/college project therefore having it perfect isnt a requirement (but I'd prefer it). I'd use anything, otherwise I'm going to have to use a ListView.
Examples
http://bit.ly/JsVhz1
http://bit.ly/KkGZ5x
Thanks in advance.
Keep in mind people have already solved this problem... don't reinvent the wheel if possible. If you have some budget, try picking one from here. If not there are a couple of WinForms freeware/open source controls, such as this one.
Unless you shell out some money, you'll still have to write the actual scheduling part; these are just display controls.
Is there a quick and easy way to make a VB.NET user interface for managing the data in a normalized DataSet?
I know that is a very subjective question, so let me explain. For a brief period early in my career, I used to create user interfaces in Microsoft Access. I developed a simple, but very effective approach to user interface design. Here are some details of that approach:
Create one form per table. Put on
each form all controls necessary to
completely manage one row in the
table.
Use combo boxes for
foreign-key columns.
Give the user a
standard way to add rows and delete
rows.
Use Apply and Undo buttons.
Let
the user navigate from one row to
another with a list box.
Provide a
search box and filter options for
more efficient navigation.
Let the
user double-click on controls
representing foreign-key columns to
quickly navigate from one form to
another.
Make the state of each form
persistent (so the user always
returns to the last navigation point)
etc.
Simple, right? I found that Access encouraged this approach. It has many built-in features that make this kind of UI easy. For instance, creating a combo box to represent a foreign key relationship takes about 10 seconds.
Well, I haven't worked in Access for a while. A couple of years ago, however, I was hired to write an application in VB.NET on the NET 2.0 framework. To get a data management user interface up and running quickly, I used my Access experience to write a quick & easy prototype in Access -- that took me about one week. Then I hired a programmer to implement that same UI in VB.NET. What a nightmare! We've been working on that implementation for a year, and I'm still very unsatisfied with the results. Some of the problems we are having:
Apply and Undo buttons don't work quite right. We can't find an event that tells us when the form is "dirty" (thus making Apply and Undo relevant).
Navigation from row to row and from form to form requires surprisingly complicated code. I get the impression that we are fighting against NET's binding features, not working with them the way they were intended to be used.
The NET controls seem buggy. For instance, when the user types a value into a combo box (as opposed to choosing it from the drop down), it doesn't trigger the SelectedValueChanged event.
We seem to be repeating a lot of information. For instance, the DataSet knows there is a relationship between the columns in two tables, but we must nevertheless effectively repeat the details of that relationship when we program the combo boxes, binding, navigtation features, etc.
We still don't have good solutions for the filter and search features. There are lots of little details to work out. (For instance, what if you choose a filter that doesn't include the currently displayed row?)
We are writing many helper functions and classes to simplify the work, and I can't figure out why that effort hasn't already been done by others -- I'm certain we are reinventing the wheel.
etc.
By themselves, none of the above are a big deal -- there are effective solutions to each one. Taken together, however, these problems are making my UI development go much slower than expected.
In an ideal world, I should be able to create a small amount of code relevant to my specific data model (for instance, one user control per table establishing the layout and logic relevant to the rows in that table) then integrate that code into a template which interprets the data model and handles everything else -- navigation, adding and deleting, apply and undo, search and filter, etc.
Thus, my question: Is there anything out there which makes this type of UI development easier?
I've searched the web for various combinations of "generic forms", "UI templates", "data managment forms", etc., but I haven't found anything on topic. Perhaps I just don't know the buzzwords. Is there a specific name for this type of UI development task?
Create UCs for each table. Drop a grid control onto the UC and bind it to the tables dataset using VS's wizard. Select the options that allow for insert, update, delete. Each row on the grid will have those buttons/actions automatically added for you.
Even with the advanced technologies and available database tools (even free alternatives) are available today, it seems that huge number of users are still very comfortable in using Excel IN EVERYTHING! That's why, as a database developer working as one of these users, I am forced to let them use Excel simply because they are very comfortable using it. Especially for the older people who seemed to never gonna let Excel go and embrace a new tool.
Currently, to make their experience as smooth as possible and at the same time, automated, I'm using a lot of database queries inside Excel be it view,SQL or stored procedures. Mostly on ad-hoc (but then became permanent) reports. My question is are there any hopes to improve this situation? I'm sure a lot of organizations are using this same method. Is it possible to completely replace this arrangement with something more logical and efficient both in data collection and reliability? I'm thinking about using Sharepoint. Am I on the right track?
I have also struggled with this problem in the past and can say that what worked for me was a two pronged approach.
Step 1 – Make a good alternative
It sounds like you have already done this, depending on the system there will always be some random report that someone needs to run to suit their “Business Need”. There is no way that you could cram all of these into your system as it would fill up with reports and the users would become snow blind.
Step 2 – User education
Show them the new way of making their own reports (Business objects SSRS whatever) and make sure they are comfortable with it. This is the hardest part as some people like their comfort blanket of excel and wont want to leave it. Give them some templates and some standard reports, maybe even pair develop one or two reports at their desk with them so they get the knack of it.
I will leave on a bit of a daily WTF, there was once this expert business manager who was an expert in business objects. She made reports left right and centre but she treated it like a giant version of excel and her work was littered with examples of this i.e. one report she wrote was to get the dealing totals for a year. No problem I hear you cry just do
SELECT SUM(DealAmount) where DealDate Between X and Y
Nope not our business expert, in here excel frame of mind this was too much like black magic so what she did was return a row for EVERY SINGLE DEAL done in that year and then aggregated it client side to give her a total. In I step and wow the users by reducing this 104mb report that took 17 minutes to run down to a 100kb report that ran in about 15 seconds.
I would go the other way around. And I mean by that, not making queries and database connections within Excel, but using some sort of Web Application to let users (through wizards) generate data they need, and export them to Excel to work.
That way you will have the following benefits:
No DB connections (and probably passwords) in your Excel files
No distribution problem of Excel files with new queries, views, etc.
Centralized approach to data retrieval
Excel for users used to it
Back in the day, I loved using Crystal Reports for ad-hoc reporting. I'm not sure about it's current status, as it seems that SAP has purchased the product: http://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/sap-crystal-solutions/index.epx